At this crossroads we're at as a church
is found in Mark 11 verse 22.
And I'll just read this prayer of faith.
It also connects over to the book of
James.
In your personal notes you can read James
chapter 5 later on, maybe during the week.
But Jesus answering saith unto them.
And then the words turn to red in
your Bible.
That means they're coming out of the mouth
of Jesus Christ.
Okay?
Now notice the first statement Jesus makes in
Mark 11 and verse number 22.
Have faith in God.
For verily I say unto you, that whosoever
shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed,
and be thou cast into the sea, and
shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe in those things which he saith, shall
come to pass.
He shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, what things soever
ye desire, when you pray, believe that ye
receive them, and ye shall have them.
And when you stand praying, and when you
stand praying, what's the next word?
Forgive.
If you have ought against any, that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive
you your trespasses.
But, verse 26, here's the catch to all
this prayer life.
But if you do not forgive, neither will
your Father which is in heaven forgive your
trespasses.
For just a moment, I want to challenge
you as a child of God to intensify
your determination and your dedication to have a
prayer life.
I want you to realize that prayer.
We have just signed up 300 volunteers in
this church to be Gideon's army of prayer.
And the very first time we asked for
volunteers, we exceeded 300 volunteers on the very
first appeal.
And now we have Gideon's 300.
We now have three captains in our church,
and they're a captain over a hundred.
We're now organizing a second army of 300.
Why?
Because we believe that the future of this
church is contained in the prayers of this
church.
The future for your marriage is in your
prayers.
If you have a son or a daughter,
and you love them, and you care about
them, I promise you, you will begin to
pray for your son or your daughter.
You say, well, my son's 35 years old.
My daughter's 49.
Does that change one thing about the need
to pray for people that we love?
God has given us an opportunity to touch
hearts and to touch lives through the power
and the privilege of prayer.
I can't help but think that when I
read this word, and I look at this
scripture, look at verse 24.
Therefore I say unto you, whatsoever you desire,
when you pray, believe that you receive them.
What the Lord's saying in His word is,
when you pray, do what?
Believe.
Can you say that with me?
When you pray, do what?
Believe.
Now, it's one thing to pray, but is
it not a whole other thing to believe
when you pray?
Will we all not confess, if you don't
mind this morning, allow me just to preach
to myself.
It's easier to pray for me than it
is to believe after I pray.
You say, well, I don't think I'd have
confessed that.
Well, we might as well be honest.
It's one thing to go through the mechanics
of prayer, but it's another thing to get
up off your knees and say, it's done.
I believe.
See, Galatians 4.4 is what we've got
to be careful about.
In the fullness of time.
Not my time, but God's time.
And it's hard to understand some things.
And many of you that are sitting here
today, you have problems in your home.
You have problems in your marriage.
You have a son or a daughter you're
worried about.
You've got a relative, maybe that's fracturing the
family right now.
Maybe you've got someone that is out in
the world that you're burdened over.
Maybe someone in your family is very sick.
Maybe someone is taking a lot of medicine
every single day just to stay alive.
You love them.
You care about them.
Maybe you're stressed over your business.
Maybe you're stressed over your investment.
Maybe you're stressed over your career path.
Maybe you're having a hard time at the
university or the 11th grade.
You know, there's any number of stresses that
we can have in our life.
And the Bible said that when we're going
through these battles, that we should pray.
But He doesn't stop there.
He said, when you pray, do what?
Believe.
Now, why is it so easy to pray
sometimes, but so difficult to believe?
God said, when you pray, do what?
Believe.
Now, the only reason there's not a Grady
White, 32 foot, sitting in my driveway, with
a tuna tower and outriggers and twin 300s
hanging on the back, with all of the
equipment on the inside, is that that would
be a prayer amiss.
You say, well, Brother Alvin, I thought you
were going to say it because you didn't
believe.
That I can believe.
Do you understand?
We're not talking about condos and Cadillacs.
We're not talking about material things here.
We're talking about things that matter in eternity.
He says, when you pray for those things,
you pray and you believe.
Now, God may give you a beautiful car.
God may give you a beautiful home, or
two beautiful homes, or five beautiful homes.
Just honor God with all your blessings.
But sometimes you have to pray for things
that are not involved in material things.
And he said, you need to pray, and
when you pray, believe.
The ultimate thing that he's getting us to
pray about is our relationship with him, our
relationship with each other, and that we would
pray for the salvation of souls.
That we would see other people come to
know the Lord Jesus Christ through our life.
Now, when I read this 11th chapter in
the book of Mark, we know that if
you go to verse 1, and when it
came nigh to Jerusalem unto Bethpage and Bethany
at the Mount of Olives, he sendeth forth
two of his disciples, and he saith unto
them, Go your way into the village over
against you.
And as soon as you be entered into
it, you shall find a colt tied, whereupon
never man sat.
Loose him, and bring him.
And if any man say unto you, Why
do you this?
Say unto that, Say ye that the Lord
hath need of him, and straightway he will
send him hither.
And they went their way, and they found
the colt tied by the door.
Now, here is a little simple lesson that
Jesus gave to the disciples in have faith
in God, and when they went, they found
what Jesus said, and his prayer for them
was that their faith be increased.
If you read this whole chapter, you find
out that it's happening on Tuesday.
You find out that it turned into a
day of questions.
The disciples were asking all kinds of questions.
And Jesus is teaching them that if I'm
going to pray, that I've got to be
a man or a woman of faith.
And faith, if you're making your equation, is
trust.
Faith equals trust.
Faith is confidence.
And such confidence should be placed in God.
He said, have faith in God.
Not have faith in man.
Men will let you down.
Women will let you down.
People will disappoint you.
A man, a woman, a young adult, a
teenager, any person can disappoint you in life.
We can be let down.
And many times, people that disappoint you are
let you down.
They don't mean to disappoint you or let
you down.
They are under their own stresses.
They're under their own loads.
They're under their own burdens.
And all of a sudden, you look to
them for help, and they can't help you.
And you get hurt because, well, I needed
you.
You weren't there for me.
And what Jesus is saying, if you're going
to watch people, you're going to stay in
turmoil all the time.
If you're going to keep your eyes on
every other person in church, you're constantly going
to be disappointed.
But, if you'll not put your faith in
man, if you'll not put your faith in
people, He said, have faith in God.
And if you'll put your faith there, you
will never, ever be disappointed.
And we can only have faith as we
rest confidently and securely in His Word.
That's why the devil doesn't want you to
be a student of that Bible.
That's why the devil doesn't want you to
read your Bible.
That's why the devil doesn't want you to
have family devotions.
That's why the devil doesn't want you to
have personal devotions.
That's why the devil doesn't want husbands and
wives to pray together.
Because if you pray together, if you read
your Bible together, then you begin to find
out you can have faith in God.
Not faith in your husband, not faith in
your wife, but faith in God.
And the two shall be one in their
faith and in their bond spiritually.
So that our homes are transformed, our lives
are changed.
We're invigorated with the power of God's Word.
And invigorated with the fact that I know
my God's alive.
I've walked with Him today.
I've talked with Him today.
My heart's rejoiced in Him today.
I am not living a little science fiction
drama.
I'm not going off into some Hollywood science
fiction.
I'm alive in the Lord God Almighty.
I was dead in my trespassing sin.
But I've been transformed by the power of
God.
I was dead and had no hope.
And Jesus made me alive.
And I have faith in God today because
His Word is alive today.
Oh man, that thrills you.
That gets you excited on the inside.
And we can only have that faith when
we know the Word of God and study
the Word of God.
Luke 137 teaches that nothing is impossible with
God.
All difficulties and all barriers can be removed
by believing prayer.
Prayer answered is from God.
Now, we won't have time to take all
this apart.
But let me just give you two or
three points to take home to think about.
Here's what you need to remember.
God does answer prayer.
And He said, have faith in God.
He answers prayer when you pray.
But there are requirements for your prayer being
answered.
Number one, you've got to be in fellowship
with God.
You've got to know who Jesus is.
You've got to know that you've asked Him
to be your Lord and Savior.
So the first requirement for having your prayer
answered is that you know you are a
part of the family of God.
You say, well, I'm a church member.
Well, that's wonderful.
Thank you for that.
Well, I've been baptized.
That's marvelous.
That's great.
I've been sprinkled.
Thank you.
That's good.
I take communion.
Wonderful.
I'm glad you're going to church.
I've learned to take all of the sacraments
of our church.
I've memorized the catechism.
That's great.
I'm glad you're so intelligent.
You're wanting to learn spiritual things.
But salvation is not ritual.
Salvation is you personally knowing that the Lord
God Almighty is God that we all will
face, and we'll spend eternity somewhere with God
or away from God, and that you have
to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I can pray all the prayers I want
to.
But if I'm not a part of the
family, they're banged.
It's prayers amiss.
I'm praying out of the boundary of the
requirements, and the requirements are that I have
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
So if you want your prayer answered, then
you've got to know you are a part
of the family of God.
Number two, if you want your prayer answered,
you've got to have in your heart no
hidden sin.
No unconfessed sin.
A secret grudge.
A secret envy.
A secret jealousy.
You've got to have nothing hidden.
As best as you can, to the best
of your human ability, you've got to look
up to heaven and say, God, as far
as I know, I have confessed before you
everything that I know about.
I want to serve you.
I want to honor you.
I have nothing hidden in my heart.
And if there's something you see that I
don't see, would you turn the searchlight of
glory on and let the Holy Spirit of
God convict me and show it to me,
and I will confess it.
This whole church can be affected by secret
or hidden sins.
This whole church, our services, if you have
a hard feeling, you have a grudge, you
have an envy, you're jealous of someone, it's
the little foxes in the fellowship that take
the power of God off our services.
And so, it becomes very important, if you
want your prayer answered for revival, for God
to move in your family, that nothing be
tucked away.
Here's the big one right here.
Number three.
If you want prayer answered, this is critical,
you must have a forgiving spirit.
You say, Brother Ralph, they wronged me.
They did me bad.
They did me wrong.
Well, I want you to pray about it,
and I want you the best you can
to forgive them.
Oh, I'd rather die.
Well, God can arrange that.
It'll be a cold day you know where
when I forgive them.
Is that not human nature?
Well, if you want your prayer answered, you
may not be in a bind right now,
but 24 hours from now, you may be
laying on a gurney, and they'll be rolling
you down the hall at Mission Hospital over
to the trauma unit, and somebody's sitting on
top of you, pushing down on your chest,
your fingernails and lips have already turned purple.
They're trying to bag you so they can
get you inside the trauma unit, keep you
alive.
You might want to have the ability to
pray, and get your prayer answered.
You may want to talk to God.
And are you going to go, Hey, time
out, trauma unit.
Stop this heart attack.
I need to go write something.
I've got to go get somebody to forgive
me for.
I need to get a prayer through.
They just told me I'm dying.
Huh?
I know.
You want your prayer answered?
He said you have a forgiving spirit.
You say, well, Brother Ralph, you don't understand.
They lied on me.
You don't understand, Brother Ralph.
We've got a member in this church that
they had a relative cheat them out of
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Put a document in front of them and
told them to sign it and said it
was part of the paperwork that needed to
be done.
And it was actually a paper saying that
they gave up their part of the estate.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And that family met with me and they
said, Brother Ralph, how can I go on?
How can I not be bitter?
I mean, that was everything.
I mean, there's no tomorrow.
That's every penny.
My relative did me wrong.
They lied to me and they stole from
me.
And I said, look, I'm not going to
tell you you're going to pray and this
is going to go away and you'll forget
it.
You'll never forget it.
But you can, by the help of God,
forgive them and say, God, I don't hold
a grudge.
And then you can begin to pray for
God to convict them that they'll do the
right thing.
Do you understand?
People can lie to you.
They can do you wrong.
Marriages can break up.
There can be all kinds of problems.
And if you keep that root of bitterness
from a bad business deal, someone took a
deal from you, someone stole from you, someone
borrowed money and they never paid you back,
if you allow that to stay in there,
it's like you are a puppet on a
string.
They're going on.
They're not thinking about you.
They stole your money.
They lied on you.
They tried to ruin your good name.
They're going on down the road living in
sin.
And if you don't forgive them, you're a
puppet.
You can't eat.
You go to eat.
You think about that.
Oh, and it pains your heart.
You try to go out in the backyard
and cook out and you're thinking about, what
if I had what they stole from me?
And the next thing you know, you're a
puppet.
And that grudge and that hard feeling, it's
manipulating you.
Let me give you another one.
We have people in our church that were
sexually abused when they were children.
We have people in our church that were
physically abused.
People broke a trust.
People hurt them.
People injured them.
And it's hard for them to go on
in life as adults because of all that
pain.
And I'm telling you, if you don't forgive
them, I'm not saying it was right.
I'm not saying it should have...
I'm not saying that.
I'm saying don't let that past control you
today.
Give it to Jesus.
God's going to handle that person if they
don't make restitution.
And if they don't get right, God will
handle them.
But don't you be a slave to the
wrong that was done to you.
Don't be a puppet to the pain.
You forgive them.
And you go on by God's help and
you serve the Lord and you help someone
else along the way that's in pain.
Huh?
And we can have our prayers answered because
we believe.
Let's stand together.